PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE – ENVIRONMENT FACTOR

The environment is one of the challenges facing today’s manager. In an earlier time, negative effects from organization activities were absorbed unobtrusively by the surroundings with the belief nature can heal by its own. As population density increased and consumption skyrocketed, this fact ceased to be true. Because there is no border for the nature, what occurs in one place on the planet has an impact on the rest of it. The manager’s challenge is to care enough about the future without imperiling today’s operations, and the decisions are not simple.
It is not unfortunate that the issue of environmental responsibility traditionally has been cast in ethical terms. While this stance is valid, and ultimately the reason for been good stewards of the planet, it does not help managers handle all the information required to make good decisions or quantify what is needed for decision making. In addition, consumers are often inconsistent, demanding recycled paper, for instance, and then choosing to buy whiter paper from the original source.
Certainly for the last few decades, we have witnessed significant progress in the handling of the most blatantly offensive effects of these factories processes, but to make the right decision upon the matter is not clear-cut path. As example, take the supermarket checkout stand. “Would you like plastic or paper for your groceries?” We’re still to choose between less than desirable alternatives since paper even if recycle still uses trees; whereas plastic uses hydrocarbons and definitely is not easy to recycle. Decision faced by operations managers are most likely the above case and infinitely more complex to pursue.
Furthermore, if manager do not see to their societal responsibility, others especially community at which their factory operate will demand compliance. A corporation is not its own island in community waters, for others are affected by its decisions: property owner, investor, the larger public and tomorrow’s adults. Surely we have learned by now that groups that do not police their own ranks effectively are sure targets for policing by others, be they governmental agencies or community organizations.
The alternatives for an operations manager are therefore to react or to take a leadership role, becoming knowledgeable about potential negative effect of the process manage by them and proposing ways to handle the unfortunate. In the long term, if we are to manage our economy’s activities for tomorrow rather than today, responsibility for the environment is not a choice to avoid, but a must to consider.